When I was a kid, my big brother always found new and innovative ways to scare the living daylights out of me! Frightening stories, haunting sounds, eerie things dangled outside my window… you name it. His most brilliant schemes involved creating life-size creepy characters positioned in my room at night for maximum terror. But one thing scared me […]

A full-scale cleaning of your refrigerator can be a frightening thing. What odd and forgotten items lie waiting on those lower shelves and back corners? Is that cheese supposed to be blue? Why do we have seven jars of pickles? And is the expiration date on those olives really… 2014?! I did a complete fridge […]

Have you ever been on a factory tour? You know, one of those deals where you see how root beer is made, or something like that? I remember touring a facility once that produced condiments. The guide led us through a sea of twirling machinery… robotic arms twisted to-and-fro, and rows of colorful bottles whizzed […]

The U-Haul was loaded and waiting outside. It was August 1995, and the “reset button” of my life was about to be pressed. Within the span of a month, I would sell my business in Chicago, move to New England, marry my fiancée, start attending a new church, and begin working full-time for Growing Christians […]

It’s one of the best moments of the year. No, I’m not talking about Christmas morning or Super Bowl Sunday. It happened just over a week ago – that moment we go BACK IN TIME; when we get to turn the clocks back an hour. It’s like magic. It’s like owning your own DeLorean with a […]

Hillary, Marco, Ben, Carly, Bernie, Donald… what do these candidates all have in common? Besides sparring for the same job opening, they share one dubious distinction: virtually every word they speak will be analyzed by the entire country. I don’t envy these folks. No matter what stance they take on any issue, they can expect […]

It’s disturbing. The articles and posts these days that find fault with nearly everything Christians do. It’s trendy. Social media rants and click-bait titles such as: “10 Things Christians do that are Totally Annoying.” It’s expected. For unbelievers to attack Christians in this way. It’s heartbreaking. When the writers are Christians themselves. It’s unfair. To […]

A utility truck rumbled up in front of my house today. I didn’t know what it was doing there. I was afraid to ask. A guy wearing a safety vest and helmet hopped out and started setting up shop. He had the whole array of spinning lights, signs and traffic cones going. Apparently a towering […]

The waning days of summer are a reflection of warm, feel-good experiences in our Rhode Island beach town. Countless seasonal visitors return here every year, seeking the charm of a coastal New England vacation. The seaside community near our house is a postcard of traditional Americana, with tidy cedar-shake homes overlooking wind-swept rocky shorelines. My […]

Final bids at a recent New York City art auction soared well over $40,000,000. Yet the subject of the frenzied closing was nothing more than a few yards of canvas and a thin layer of pigment. Forty. Million. Dollars. It’s hard to fathom. You might assume we’re talking about a famous painting by Monet, Picasso, […]